I’m a photographer, I have almost a quarter million photos in my archives. When I take a photo, 90% of it is composition, during which I move around, analyze lighting, background, aperture, shutter speed, exposure and a whole lot of “what do I want to capture here?”

The other 10% is editing, which for me involves minor color adjustments, highlights, shadows, cropping, etc. I make all the decisions.

AI can generate an image based on a prompt, and that’s fine, but I would never, never claim to have created that output myself.

So the only difference is the amount of decisions and iteration. If someone spends 5 hours iterating with AI vs 5 minutes on a photo, which one has the better claim to being a creative work